


Something

by giantessmess



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 11:11:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8283818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giantessmess/pseuds/giantessmess
Summary: The day after the morning after. Cat is someone whose first instinct is to put up walls. Kara is someone who can't help but dismantle them.





	

The office is silent at the end of a long day. There is only the prickle of static Kara can’t tune out, the gentle hum of the screens always on in the adjoining offices and the imposing flatscreens mounted on the far wall in front of her. Cat stares down at a spreadsheet, running her fingers along it like she hasn’t heard Kara stride in. Her attention doesn’t shift much when Kara comes to a halt in front of her desk. There’s just a small flicker of her eyes, which resume their tracking of the quarterly reports. Kara expects a conversation. _The_ conversation. The one that has been sitting just below the surface all day, making the insults, the exasperated shrieking of _Kiera_ seem louder somehow. But she wasn’t expecting one of the most important conversations of her life to start in the middle, leaving her scrambling to play catch-up.

“I’m not going to hold you—I don’t do hugs, irrespective of the amount of clothing involved.” Cat’s voice is measured, cool. She glances up and regards Kara impersonally as if they are discussing the crispness of her lettuce wrap. “I don’t do cloying morning-after breakfasts, where we discuss feelings. I don’t do matching robes—do you have any idea how nauseating those are, Kara? With little cursive names on the lapels? Implying that the person wearing them is so bafflingly insecure that they need to declare their insipidness with embroidery.”

“What? I don’t… I mean I have a bathrobe already, so…”

“I don’t do hand-holding during meals; it gets unsanitary. Or while walking down the street. It’s like those people never used a sidewalk before. Kara, if I wanted to intimately share my space with a human chaingang I’d be strapping myself to a tree somewhere singing _We Are The World_.” 

“Yeah…I get that…”

There’s a pause. Cat’s expression is still poised, as if in the middle of an argument. But she’s staring in a different direction suddenly. Kara waits. Waits some more. Crosses her arms.

“Ok, so are you done?’

Cat frowns, but Kara knows this expression as well as any other she has seen Cat perform for show. And sure enough, Cat indicates to Kara with a wave of her hand. Calculated dismissiveness. 

“Is this your way of trying to...? I mean,” Kara tries not to laugh, but is unable to hide the nervousness in her smile. She tilts her head a little in confusion, squinting. “Cat, we had breakfast. I ate waffles?”

Cat rolls her eyes and she’s back, more solid inside the space again. 

“Oh honestly, Kara. I was making a general statement of my intentions. I wasn’t referring to…” she looks exasperated with herself, and stalls. Something Kara has never seen her do until very recently. Looking up, Cat meets her eyes and seems incapable of setting her gaze to indifferent. A small shift of her eyes reveals fear. Her voice, however, is unwavering. “Unless you have a time-traveling ability I’m unaware of—“

“Cat. Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Look,” and here Kara starts to come closer. Cat is perfectly still, immobile behind her desk. But Kara isn’t intimidated by that last barrier. At least not enough to stop herself from walking right around and grasping one of those hands she’s not allowed to be holding. Cat closes her eyes, as if trying to ward her off. “It’s ok to be scared.”

“I’m not scared.”

“We said some things, we ate waffles with Carter the next morning.”

“It was just—”

“And if you say it was just sex one more time Cat, Rao help me.”

Cat smiles a little then, looks up to meet her eyes. Her expression has softened.

“I don’t know how to do this.”

Kara hums in agreement but doesn’t say anything else. Cat’s hand feels small inside hers, even if it isn’t. Kara holds it gently, marvelling at the fact that they’re the same size, really. But there is a fragility to them, to Cat. Kara knows this knowledge is precious, this softness. A side of Cat that not many people see. Cat seems to deflate a little, like she has run out of energy to fight. Cat huffs a breath that may be a laugh, a smile following.

“You know, I think the last time I let someone hold me…like that? There was a different Clinton running for office.”

Kara takes these words for what they are, an admission that this is something that Cat doesn’t know the measure of. Kara waits, trying to find the right response. She knows how powerful words are, despite how carelessly Cat strings them together and flings them out like she’s trying to do battle with something twice her size.

“You know it doesn’t bother me,” Kara says. Cat doesn’t show any indication that she knows what Kara is talking about. “Your age, my age…”

“Of course it matters,” Cat says, but there isn’t any bite to her words. 

“Ok, it matters. But you don’t get to decide that it matters to me.”

Cat’s smile is small, and she nods.

“I think that’s fair.”

“And you have to stop making up rules just to…I don’t know…fill the air.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” Cat’s voice is warm though, her eyes tracking Kara’s expression.

“Breakfast, Cat? You’re trying to take away breakfast.”

“Well, I apologise. God knows what will happen if I don’t provide you with enough calories. You’d probably drop from the sky.”

“Does that mean you’re going to stop doing this?”

Cat lets out a breath, her eyes close briefly.

“I can try. I promise I can try.”

“It doesn’t have to be perfect, Cat. It just has to be something.”

Cat’s hand grips hers back, firmer now. And the particular strength of Cat that is so familiar to Kara fills the room. It’s a power that settles in the air when she directs her empire, barks a command at someone across the room. Or simply just exists in space, as if Cat is wired with something luminous. Despite everything Kara feels smaller, as if a shift has taken place. Cat’s expression has become more open, but it’s solid, commanding. And before Kara is ready for it, Cat lifts their shared hands up and kisses Kara’s once, softly.

‘It is something.’

It is more intimate than anything that has come before, which is ridiculous considering. Kara can’t stop her face breaking into a grin. Cat wears a wry smile that feels conspiring. A look that says they are in this together now.

**Author's Note:**

> Dragged kicking and screaming back to fic. This is just me trying to figure out the pairing, and the voices. I blame my insane need to write Cat Grant's particular brand of snark.


End file.
